Organic Chemistry
by yoshi09
Summary: Having never been on a "real" date before, Annie goes on a practice date with Abed after encouragement from the rest of the Greendale 7.
1. The Problem

**Timeline**: After Season 3's Dreamatorium episode, and before the season finale.

**Author's Note**: I want all my Annie/Abed fics to take place in the same universe, so there may be a reference or two from "Lessons in Modern Chivalry" in this fic. With that said, this takes place after Lessons in Modern Chivalry, and though it isn't really a sequel I think it would help if you read it first.

A/N 2: I'm prematurely releasing this! I planned on posting the first chapter sometime mid or late November, but it's AA Week! It's a celebration! =D

* * *

Chapter 1: The Problem

Annie was feeling horrible. She shouldn't— she knew this— she _should_ feel over the moon right now— even the girl she was in her past life given the totally-uncreative and uncalled for title of "Annie Adderall" that she had been working so hard to erase would have reacted more appropriately.

It happened yesterday. She was talking— and she _knew_ it was _just_ talking; she wasn't trying to win boys over in Organic Chemistry, never mind that she did look cuter than most girls in an unflattering lab coat— to a classmate for the past few weeks. They were lab partners after all so it made sense when his hands occasionally brushed hers when he passed the microscope to her, made sense that she shared her double spaced, Helvetica-fonted, color-coded notes with him when he missed a class, or two, or three— made sense that he asked her out for a dinner and a movie this coming Friday out of the blue.

She said yes, of course.

He said dinner and a movie after they studied, so he meant it as a study break. No biggie. It would be fun!

And then Troy reminded her a couple hours later while she made dinner (it was her turn. Troy would be washing dishes so he was chaperoning to make sure she didn't use too many dishes while cooking) of the chick flick marathon they were supposed to have that day.

"I'm studying that day." she said, popping the lasagna into the oven with mitten-covered hands. She was wearing Abed's Inspector Spacetime apron.

"By day you mean before 6pm, right?" Troy said seriously, arms crossed to indicate he meant business. It would have looked threatening had he not been wearing his Spider-Man pajamas with matching slippers. "Because we had been planning this since last month and it was _your _idea."

She closed the oven and started to take the mittens off. "I know, but I have a test next Monday and James is busy this weekend. Can't we reschedule?"

"Abed and I are busy this weekend too," Troy began, following Annie as she walked to hang the mitts on the wall, "Need I remind you that we have a very important showing of Sesame's Street to catch at 11am sharp on Saturday? Then that brownie-making contest we have on Sunday with Shirley. Or did you forget about that too?"

She turned to face her roommate. "We could do the chick flick marathon Saturday night."

"Who studies on a Friday night?" Troy grilled.

"I do. And it's Friday afternoon, technically." She shrugged a little, not meeting his eyes. "We have a study break at night."

"What's a study break?" Troy's eyes suddenly widened in panic. "Annie, how long are you going to be studying Friday? Will we ever see you again?"

"Troy! Calm down. It's more like an after-study break. A reward for studying so much." She ignored Troy's 'smart people are weird' comment, "It's just dinner and a movie."

"Whoa." Troy's expression changed so quickly from concerned and a little sad to inappropriate and cheeky that Annie took an unconscious step backward. "You go _girl_. All you had to say is that you were getting some ting tang in the bing bang."

"What?" Annie blushed, her mouth working furiously in embarrassed retaliation. "I am not getting some— some ting tang walla bing bang. It is just a study break!"

"On a Friday night? Dinner?" Troy was moving in closer with each sentence while he nodded suggestively. "_And _a movie?"

Before she could so much as think of a response, Troy pivoted and began walking toward the blanket fort room. "Wait'll I tell Abed!"

"It's not a date!" Annie yelled uselessly after him. Then quietly to herself, "Right?"

* * *

Annie had walked into the study room the next day with a renewed gusto. She had been thinking about what Troy said all night and though it did seem a bit... "date-y," James hadn't dropped any romantic hints before, so clearly he meant just a study break and nothing else. She was not going to continue thinking about Friday and make it a bigger deal than it was. She was going to enjoy today. Nothing was going to bring her down—

"Finally putting those large knockers to some good use Friday, 'ey Annie?"

Britta gaped. "Pierce!"

Annie whirled. "Troy!"

Troy gasped. "Jeff!"

Jeff lowered his phone in dismissive irritation. "What?"

"Oh. I thought we were just yelling each other's names?" Everyone was still looking at Troy expectantly. Troy visibly shrunk into his chair. "Guess not."

"So by 'tell Abed,' you also meant Jeff, Shirley, Britta and Pierce?" Annie said, hurt at Troy's betrayal.

"Well now that we've addressed the elephant in the room..." Pierce began.

"There _was_ no elephant in the room, Pierce." Britta started, "Annie didn't know that we all knew she was going on a date with James from her Organic Chemistry class. And what she does or does not do with her breasts on Friday is none of your concern."

"Britta's right." Shirley interjected supportively in Annie's direction, "Even though the preservation of a woman's girlhood before marriage is very important and something Annie should be proud—"

"I am not going to have sex with James—!" Annie yelled sharply to the group.

Shirley looked at Abed across the table. "Did she just interrupt me?" Abed nodded. "She did _not _just interrupt me right now." Pierce put a comforting hand over hers and the beginnings of Shirley's anger shriveled into disgust. She pulled her hand out from under his.

"—We're not even going on a date! We are just having a study session followed by a study break. It just happens to fall on a Friday night."

"You know what else falls out on a Friday night? My pe—"

"Pierce!" Jeff shouted. Pierce looked in his direction. "Shut up. Annie," Annie snapped her attention to Jeff in clear annoyance. "sit down. Troy," Troy looked up. "Stop tweeting about how much sex Annie is going to be getting from James this Friday. You're blowing up my phone."

"You're _tweeting_ it?" Annie squeaked, her voice hitting a new hysteric octave.

"Wow Jeff, tattle-tale much?" Troy said. He looked at Annie and mouthed 'I got your back.'

Jeff rolled his eyes. "Annie. You are going out on a date with a classmate. End of discussion."

Annie, now seated in her designated spot at the table, opened her mouth to retaliate.

"No, Annie. You are." Jeff put his phone down. "Define what a date is."

"Ooh I can!" Troy quickly tapped the word in his phone. "'Date.'" Troy recited, "'A sweet, dark brown, oval fruit containing a hard stone, often eaten dried.'"

"Okay, Annie!" Jeff said, rounding his attention and the group's back to their youngest member. "_You_ define date."

"An outing that two people go on with romantic intentions. Usually to get to know one another better."

Jeff kept looking at her.

"...And it's not a date between me and James because there's nothing romantic and we've known each other since the beginning of the semester."

"Oh my GOD," Jeff said in exasperation, "Abed, tell me where I am right now."

"Greendale Community College."

"Oh _really_? Good! I thought I was back in frikkin' junior high! Annie, it's a date. James is using the excuse of a study session so you would be more willing to say yes to a date code-name '_study break_.' I would know, I tried that with Britta during the first semester in this hellhole!"

There were collective groans and murmurs around the room ranging from "Jeffrey, I don't like your language," from Shirley to "It's true," from Britta.

Jeff turned to Britta, "But it worked, didn't it? You had sex with me. I won."

There were more groans from the ladies in the room and variations of "awesome" from Troy and Pierce.

"Um, can we go back to the part where we were talking about Annie's date?" Abed said, pointing at Annie, a piece of popcorn in his hand.

Jeff looked like he was about to ask Abed where he got the popcorn from but then decided against it. He turned to Annie. "Listen, you're going on a date. That's _normal_."

Rather than calming down, Annie looked frightened. "I've never been on a real date before."

"Plot twist." Abed interjected.

"You've never been on a real date before?" Jeff repeated.

"What was Vaughn and that charming, handsome, young man Rich then?" Shirley asked.

"Even though we did share some real moments picking up trash by the river," Annie giggled a little at the memory, "Rich said I was too young for him."

"And Vaughn?" Jeff asked.

"Vaughn and I hung out a lot but we never... really had a real conversation. We mostly just, um... kissed."

"Seconded." Britta supplied.

"Annie's never been on a date?" Troy said, "Aww..."

Annie was a bundle of nerves now. "There are plenty of people who haven't been on dates yet." she looked around the room, "I mean, at least one of you haven't been on a date either..."

Jeff picked up his phone and continued texting. Britta tried to give her a comforting smile. Troy just kept looking at her like she was a cute little puppy.

Shirley turned away. "Don't look at me, I'm a married woman. I've been on plenty of dates."

"Well since you all are so curious, when I was Annie's age I impregnated at least fift—"

"No one is curious, Pierce." Jeff said without looking up from his phone.

Annie locked eyes with Abed. "Abed, you haven't had a date before, right?"

Abed popped a piece of popcorn in his mouth. "Recently? Or are we talking about last year? The year before that? Trick question. Yes to all."

"Whoa, really?" Britta said, genuinely impressed.

Abed nodded. "Mmhmm." He popped another piece of popcorn into his mouth. "There was Jeff's classmate, Stephanie, who introduced herself to me during that day Jeff played strip pool with the physical education teacher. She was pretty cute but she never watched the Saw movies and thought Star Wars was boring so that relationship ended quick. Then there was this girl you guys don't know named Jackie— it didn't work out but later that year I helped her give birth in the back of an SUV. There was Meghan, the leader of the group of girls that resembled Mean Girls in the women's studies class I took with Annie, Britta and Shirley— after I helped her regain her popularity status she and I went on a couple dates before she transferred into law school. Then there was the secret service agent—"

"You went out with a secret service agent?" Shirley asked.

"—yeah. Her name is Robin. We watched Kickpuncher together. We had something real going but she had to go overseas with the president last year and I haven't heard from her since." He turned to Troy, "You would have liked her."

"Okay great, so I'm just a prude then." Annie said, throwing her arms up in agitation.

Shirley turned sympathetically toward the youngest member of the group. "Oh An-nie. Prude isn't a bad thing. That's just a name sinners use to throw at well-meaning followers of God."

"Prude!" yelled Pierce.

"And what a cute little prude she is!" Troy agreed, his voice taking on the tone a person takes when observing kittens.

"I am not staying for any more of this." Annie got up and made for the door just in time to run into the dean.

"Whoa! Slow down there, busy bee." The dean stepped back a little to give Annie's upset demeanor a once over. "Is this about your date with James? I know he's no James _Dean_," he looked at the group expectantly before turning back to Annie, "but he's a very nice guy. Straight B student—" Annie brushed past the dean and out the door.

The dean put his hands on his waist while watching Annie leave. "Well not to put a damper on anyone's day, but what did you all do to our future valedictorian?" He looked at the study group. "Jeff? Troy?" When no one responded the dean continued, "I expected more from the most diverse, well represented group on campus." The dean's eyes swept over the group. He put a hand on Jeff's shoulder as if to steady himself. "I am so disappointed that I don't even remember what dean-licious news I had for you all. I need comforting. Jeff—" The dean leaned down as if to hug Jeff.

"No." Jeff deadpanned.

"Not today?"

"Never." Jeff said, still looking at his phone.

The dean straightened proper and nodded, giving Jeff's shoulder one last squeeze. "Okay. Well, you all have a great day! Study hard!" He waved and disappeared from the room.

* * *

A/N: Like many authors, reviews make me feel good. =D


	2. The Solution

A/N: To the anon reviewers I can't mail, in order from first received to last: **Guest** - I think all my Annie/Abed stories are going to lack in Annie/Abed in the beginning, at least romantically because I always need to set up the plot haha. Hopefully you'll stick around? / **professorson** - It took me a second to know what you were talking about but you're welcome! It kind of makes me sad to see Jeff portrayed as the bad guy so often in Annie/Abed fics. He's actually my third favorite character after Abed and Troy and I thought it'd be a refreshing change to have him not jealously pursuing Annie, or Annie 'realizing' that Abed was the better guy all along or something. Thank you for the review! / **Guest** - Thank you thank you thank you! I am glad you noticed the perspective change. Lessons in Modern Chivalry was super fun to write and as much as I love writing this fic, I won't lie, I'm really worried. Annie is harder for me to relate to so I'm anxious if I'm even writing her correctly. But your review made me feel better and I hope you like what I'll be doing with this story.

Thanks for the story follows! Here's chapter two, also updated sooner than later.

_Ch. 2: The Solution_

Annie had trapped herself in her room. After classes, instead of going to the study room to meet up with the group she had opted to go straight back to the apartment and avoid any more discussion about her date with James.

She had come to terms with it now, but it didn't mean it made her situation better. It made it worse.

She hadn't had a date since she broke up with her boyfriend in high school and this was her third year in college now. She was having trouble remembering how a date was supposed to go. She could imagine, but most of her ideas were muddled with chick flicks, Disney movies and impossible male leads and she doubted that James was either prince or a closet billionaire heir. James was nice, but he was also normal. The panic set in a little after she realized her standard of normal was walking in on Troy and Abed's bathroom lightsaber fight while she tried to brush her teeth.

For a change, retyping her chem notes wasn't keeping her mind busy. Annie sighed. She looked at the calendar hanging above her computer— it was only two days until the date.

There was a rapid succession of knocking on her door. Troy.

She couldn't avoid them forever. It was her turn to wash dishes and she hated leaving them overnight. Annie walked to the door, unlocked it, and opened it a crack to peer outside.

Troy and Abed were about an inch from her face.

She yelped and jumped back, the door swinging open wide with her movement.

"Troy! Abed!" she shouted, clutching her heart. Abed and Troy straightened their posture, their bodies crowding her door frame.

"We thought about what you said." Troy started.

Annie rubbed her temple. She had a feeling she knew where this was going. "About me never going on a date?"

"No. About you being a prude." Abed replied, his quick, excited tone implying a good idea was coming.

Annie moved to shut the door on their faces.

"Wait- wait- wait!" Troy took a step forward and Abed stuck his foot out as a makeshift doorstop.

"Hear us out, Annie!" Troy rubbed his hands together, excitedly. "We thought about it and thought about it and then we played Halo and then thought about it some more..."

Annie was nodding along to indicate she was listening, though her expression was getting more and more impatient.

"...and then I said 'I need to go to football practice'—"

"—Then I said," Abed continued seamlessly, "'That's it.'" His index finger shot up, his eyes brightening as he relived the moment of epiphany, "'What Annie needs is practice. What if," Abed and Troy stepped out from her door frame and room in unison, "she went on a practice date first?'"

Annie rolled her eyes in exasperation. "With who?"

Abed gave her a quick point. "We haven't gotten there yet."

Troy smiled. "But we're close! A couple more hours and we'll find the perfect candidate!"

Annie just looked at them.

There was a moment of deliberate pause and then Annie said "Good night guys." She closed the door.

* * *

"Worst. Idea. Ever." Jeff deadpanned.

Shirley gripped her handbag in excitement. "I think it's nice."

"Ay-bed, take these. They're ribbed. For her pleasure."

Abed reached over to take the condoms from Pierce.

"That is disgusting. Abed don't take those." Britta said sharply. Abed quickly retracted his hand. "Take these instead. They're certified from the UK's Vegan Society." Britta placed a couple condoms into Abed's already open messenger bag. Britta looked at Pierce triumphantly. "No animals harmed for all your anti-baby needs."

"Can someone give Britta something to chew on?" Troy said, taking his seat in the study room. "I don't want to hear her talk anymore."

"Why is everyone giving Abed condoms?"

Everyone looked up.

"Annie!" Britta chirped.

"Annie!" Shirley said brightly.

"Hey Annie." Abed gave her a small wave from his seat.

"We missed you." Troy added.

Everyone but Abed and Jeff were giving her large smiles.

Annie stepped tentatively to her own seat. "You saw me this morning Troy..." she sat down slowly, her eyes wandering over the group. "So... what's... up?" she continued carefully.

"My erection." Pierce said. He chuckled at his own joke.

Shirley shook her head, a frown on her face as she looked away from Pierce.

There was another long pause as everyone else exchanged glances.

"All right!" Jeff shouted. "Stop acting like there's landmines around Annie. I thought you two already told her most of your plan?"

"Plan?" Annie perked, "What plan?"

"We were get-ting to the rest of it." said Troy through gritted teeth, shooting a death glare at Jeff.

"Please do because I don't get the condom part in this whole plan either." Shirley said, looking at Troy and Abed respectively. "I thought we all just agreed that Annie should go on a practice date with Abed."

Everyone groaned.

Shirley looked around innocently. "Did I say something wrong?"

Troy inhaled deeply. "Too soon, Shirley!"

"Too soon?" Shirley asked.

"Wait— what?" Annie suddenly said, as if Shirley's previous words just sunk in. "A practice date with Abed? Wait. Oh my God... is _that_ what the condoms are for? Oh God—" Annie stood up so fast, her chair tipped and clattered to the floor behind her.

"Annie, it's not what it looks like." Abed said quickly. "Britta gave them to me and I took them for Troy."

"For Troy or to use _with _Troy?" Shirley asked suspiciously.

"Gay!" Pierce shouted.

"Well I wasn't going to use them for the practice date tonight." Abed replied casually, "It's not kosher. And I'm not one to decline a gift."

"Thanks man."

Troy and Abed shared a handshake.

"Wait, _I'm_ not kosher?" Annie said, clearly mishearing and aghast for an entirely new reason, "I'll have you know I'm very kosher. I'm the most kosher thing in this room."

Abed cocked his head to the side, his eyes faraway. "Well, I suppose if you're consenting we can have pretend sex on our pretend date."

"O-kay, this conversation just got really weird, really fast." Jeff said.

"Does that mean you're agreeing with your practice date with Abed?" Britta said teasingly in Annie's direction. She raised her hand for Abed to high five. "Way to go!"

Abed gave Britta a brief smile and reached forward to high five her. Pierce leaned over to give Abed a firm pat on the shoulder while Troy mouthed "Nice one" to his best friend.

"What did I just agree with?" asked Annie, panicked.

"A practice date with Abed." Shirley punctuated her excitement with a giggle.

"But I don't need a practice da— what is that?" Annie caught sight of the not-yet-erased cacophony of lists, chemistry equations, diagrams, and flow charts on the white board written hastily on the far side of the room— all of which centered around the word "Annie."

Abed's eyes immediately lit up at her interest. "That," Abed started, standing to gesture grandly at the board, "is the Date Recruit Evaluation Analysis Module. Or DREAM for short."

He expressed the title in the same manner as he and Troy introduced the Dreamatorium so Annie was immediately suspicious. "DREAM?"

"Yeah." Troy began from the table, disappointment evident in his tone, "I wanted to call it the STD but I couldn't find anything else it could stand for except Soda Train Drumstick."

"It was also the brainchild of the Dreamatorium so it was chosen for conceptual symmetry." Abed added.

Annie just looked at him.

He took the cue to continue, "The list of the names on the left get thrown into the flow chart, pass into a venn digram for further analysis by the group to weigh positives and negatives and finally run through a 'trust-o-meter,' which measures how much we trust the potential candidate to take you out on a practice date, thereby achieving optimal date results." He pointed at the right side where a much shorter list titled "results" had been compiled.

Annie squinted at the board. "What are the chemistry equations for?"

"Ah, allow me to explain that one." Troy started seriously. He stood with an air of authority before making his way to the white board, hands behind his back. "They were there when we got here. I thought they made the graphs and stuff look more professional and serious, so I asked Abed if we could keep them. We did." Troy went back to his seat in as serious a manner as he left it.

Abed noticed Annie didn't look impressed so he continued, pointing to another list titled "Exempt" crammed in the corner of the white board. "And those are names automatically filtered out because of past mutual romances. We figured since you already had those experiences you probably required practice elsewhere."

Annie stood and walked around the table to read the "potential candidates" in Abed's tiny, neat writing on the board. Abed followed.

"Chang?" Annie read aloud, incredulously.

Abed pointed over his shoulder without a glance. "Shirley's idea."

"Star Burns?" Annie continued.

His finger shifted to the left. "Jeff's."

"I didn't know it was serious, An-nie!" Shirley defended.

"Even a pointless list has to have a bottom." Jeff said without looking up from his phone.

"Exactly," continued Abed, "which is why I added Garrett so that we've come full circle." he pointed at Garrett's name for emphasis. Annie placed two fingers at her temple as if she had the beginnings of a headache. Abed immediately backtracked. "Neither Chang nor Star Burns made it through to the final results. Garrett was the only one of the three that did because he was deemed harmless by the group."

There were murmurs of agreement behind them. Annie heard Pierce say something about "as harmless as a vibrator without batteries."

"Abed..." Annie began, his name rolling off her tongue like a warning.

"Yup?" Abed replied innocently.

Shirley cut in before Annie went to throttle him, "But Annie!" Annie's attention snapped to Shirley in irritation to which Shirley gave her best Christian smile. "Look at all the nice results we came up with for you." She gestured at the right side of the whiteboard and Annie followed the movement.

"Aren't you glad that a close friend is someone you can practice with?" Britta said with an encouraging smile, "Abed made it to the top with flying colors."

"No I didn't," Abed corrected nonplussed, "Troy had football practice so he couldn't do it, Neil had a Dungeons and Dragons tournament and I was only chosen because I was the next available candidate—"

"The dean was _fourth_?" Annie said in disbelief.

"_I _was _fourth_?" The dean echoed in pleasant surprise.

The group turned to see the dean, dressed in full wizard garb plus wand, leaning against the bookshelf near the door. No one bothered to ask when he got there.

"I never could have _dreamed_ that I would be in the top five of any list you all came up with." The dean leaned over to give Jeff a squeeze on the shoulder. "Also, since I have everyone's attention, we are screening a full showing of _Magic_ Mike in the cafeteria at 6pm today! See you all there!" He gave Jeff one last imparting squeeze and then walked out of the room.

"You know that movie is about male strippers, right?" yelled Jeff over his shoulder.

"Jeff would know all about that." Pierce commented.

"Shut up, Pierce." Jeff addressed the rest of the group, "And why are we still having this conversation? Clearly Annie doesn't agree with this idea."

Britta shot a glare at Jeff before she turned to speak soothingly to the youngest member of the group, "Annie, you were scared stiff yesterday at the mere _idea_ of going on a little date with a classmate," Britta said, "This'll be good for you."

"If it's any consolation, Annie," Pierce added, "You're wound up tighter than a Jewish curl and Abed's religion is going to give him 72 virgins when he dies, so really this date is good for the both of you."

"Wow, thanks Pierce." Annie got up and left the room.

The remainder of the group turned to look at Pierce.

"What? I was only trying to help."

"Try. Less." Jeff deadpanned.

Shirley looked pointedly at Abed. "Abed you have to go find Annie and calm her down."

"Me? Usually Jeff takes the wheel at this point—" Abed began.

"Abed's right," Britta supported, turning to Jeff.

"I'm busy."

"Doing what?"

"Not being involved."

Britta sat back smugly. "Hah, typical Jeff, all because something doesn't revolve around him he loses interest."

Jeff glared at her. "Fine. How's this?" His eyes flicked to the man next to her, his voice taking a higher pitch that matched mannerisms that were uncannily Britta. "Well, Abed, you thought of the plan so now it's your responsibility to fix it."

Abed pointed at Jeff and made a small pew sound. "Point taken, Britta."

Jeff gave him a weird look.

"I'd go with you, but the last time I tried to comfort Annie we both got dehydrated." Troy explained, "We cried so much I was worried our eyes would dry up and fall out like raisins_._" He paused thoughtfully. "I don't even remember the reason why we were crying."

"I remember. I found you both huddled under a three-piece pillow fort in the living room. Annie was crying because her grandmother was in the hospital and Troy was crying for the sake of crying." Abed paused. "All right. You've convinced me." He stood and shouldered his messenger bag.

"I did?" Troy said, confused.

"He did?" Jeff repeated, equally confused.

"It's not in my character realm to do the comforting usually. I'm more of the go-to impartial advice guy. But I'm for expanding my horizons and doing things out of the norm. Catches the audience off guard, makes characters more realistic and it's required for this plot to develop." He nodded once and walked out of the room in the direction Annie went.

Shirley straightened in her chair so she could see around Jeff as Abed turned a corner and out of sight. "Is this the part where we get up, follow him at a respectable distance, hide in a bush and then eavesdrop?"

There was a short pause.

"Yeah." Britta and Jeff said in unison. The remainder of the Greendale 7 bolted out of the room after Annie and Abed.


End file.
